On Monday, Anheuser-Busch InBev, the globe’s largest brewer and maker of Budweiser, agreed to purchase SABMiller, the globe’s second largest brewer, for a tidy $104 billion. This, of course, is the biggest news in the world of suds right now—a truly massive merger that, if approved, “reshuffles the global beer industry and sets the stage for higher beer prices worldwide,” as the Wall Street Journal puts it.

Momentous as it might be, however, the deal probably won’t mean a whole lot to American beer drinkers. That’s because regulators are unlikely to greenlight the merger unless SABMiller gives up the rights to brew its biggest domestic brands, Miller and Miller Lite, in the United States. (As of now, the company produces the beers through MillerCoors, a joint venture with Molson Coors). It would be similar to the agreement AB InBev struck in 2013, when it bought Mexican megabrewer Grupo Modelo and was required to spin off the U.S. brewing operations of beers like Corona and Modelo Especial into a separate company. So while the bigger, badder AB InBev company is expected to control more than a quarter of the planet’s beer sales, Miller and Bud will almost certainly remain stateside rivals—the Yankees and Red Sox of pale macrobrews.

There is, however, another story about competition in the U.S. beer industry that should have Americans paying attention. On Monday, Reuters reported that the Department of Justice was “probing allegations” that AB InBev has been attempting to stifle competition from craft brewers by choking off their access to distributors, thus making it harder to get their products to thirsty beer fans. If true, that would be something to get agitated about.

In the vast majority of U.S. states, beer makers are not allowed to sell directly to bars or grocery stores. Instead, they have to work through middlemen known as wholesalers, or distributors, who exist solely to market alcohol to America’s retailers and watering holes. Known as the “three-tier-distribution system,” the setup is basically an outmoded holdover from the early post-prohibition era that persists largely because wholesalers are major political donors. As archaic as the system may be, the bottom line is that without a distributor, a brewer can’t really get its ales and lagers on shelves or on tap.

As the brewer of all things Bud, AB InBev already has plenty of heft with wholesalers. But in recent years, it has tried to slash its distribution costs by taking advantage of state laws that allow beer makers to purchase wholesalers outright so long as they operate independently. Thanks to a spate of recent acquisitions, Bud currently owns 17 of the 500 companies that move its beer, with operations in cities including Boston, New York, and Los Angeles.

Craft brewers say that AB InBev is abusing its growing power over America’s beer distribution network in two ways. First, they claim that some distributors purchased by AB InBev either stop selling products made by rival brewers outright, or seemingly stop making much of an effort to sell them. Second, they claim that AB InBev has pressured distributors it doesn’t own “to only carry the company’s products and end their ties with the craft industry.” Conveniently, AB InBev has also purchased a number of well-loved craft brewers, such as Elysian and Goose Island, which it could readily offer to wholesalers as substitutes for other small brands.

The Justice Department is reportedly still in the early stages of investigating these allegations. On Monday, though, InBev acknowledged that it was talking to both the Justice Department and California’s Office of the Attorney General about its plans to purchase distributors in San Jose and Oakland, California. The company said it was “working cooperatively to address any questions” about the deals.

If they’re right, though, the craft brewers’ claims about a secret dirty war by AB InBev would, in a way, be a perfect complement to the SABMiller merger. There have been two trends in the American beer world over the past several years: Overall sales have stagnated while craft beer sales have soared, cutting into the biggest brewers’ market share. The merger helps AB InBev solve the first problem by giving it more access to promising developing markets, like Africa. Throttling craft brewers by cutting them off from distributors would help them solve the second problem by, well, throttling craft brewers by cutting them off from distributors. This Bud’s for kneecapping the competition.

Husar. There were lots of entries this time around, and I just love the color and composition in Hop Nosh IPA. Husar will get a #Beerporn Mug and a $30 gift card to a bar of his choice. I’m sure we’ll be seeing the mug in posts of his soon.

Summer has come to a close and that means it is time to decide on a Beerporn winner of the real world prize consisting of a beer mug and a gift card. Here are the 6 finalists (In order of posting) from which a winner will be decided in the coming weeks.

Make sure to leave your comments below on which one you think should win.

In a statement made in response to recent press speculation, SABMiller said that no proposal had yet been received from AB InBev and that it would respond as appropriate once an approach had been made.

SABMiller, which is the world’s number two brewer in terms of sales with brands including Peroni, Grolsch and Pilsner Urquell, saw shares in London rose 23 percent on the news, with AB InBev’s stock up 7.4 percent. News of the deal also bolstered Europe’s brewing sector with Heineken and Carlsberg shares both up 5 percent.

Following SABMiller’s announcement, AB InBev confirmed that it had made an approach to SABMiller’s board regarding a combination of the two companies, adding that it was its intention to work with the U.K. group’s board toward “a recommended transaction”.

A combined ABInBev/SABMiller would have a market value of around $270 billion, based on current prices, Reuters reported.

Shares of SABMiller currently trade at around £36. If AB InBev matched this in its bid, plus SABMiller’s net debt, that suggests a deal value of around $100 billion—one of the top ten acquisitions of all time. Neither company has commented on valuation so far however. Analysts at Bernstein suggested the deal value might have to go higher than £39 per share to ensure SABMiller shareholders’ agreement.

Any deal would also mean a broader geographical reach into fast-growing emerging markets: AB InBev has a strong presence in Latin America, while SABMiller sells across Africa.

However, there are likely to be some regulatory hurdles to be cleared because of overlap between the two companies. SAB’s stake in Miller Coors in the U.S. and its 49 percent stake in CR Snow in China are likely to have to go, according to analysts at Bernstein.